Everywhere you look, AI is making its way into our lives and that’s never been more true than in the restaurant industry. AI for restaurants is quickly transforming operations like quick-serve restaurants into more efficient and convenient experiences both for internal teams as well as the customer experience. Ultimately, AI is making the quick-serve industry more efficient and streamlined, and it’s pretty exciting to see how it’s changing the game.
Customers are becoming more and more demanding thanks to technology that has sped up the experience across the board. This means that if your competitors are implementing technology and AI into the experience, the playing field has just leveled up for everyone. You can’t afford to ignore some of these innovations!
AI Speeds Up Fast Food!
We’re all about speed in this industry, right? It’s in our name down the to the usage of “quick” and “fast” in our business models. The great thing about AI is that it greatly reduced human errors and lines, improving speed. Are humans out of the picture completely? Absolutely not! But, AI is allowing teams to run more efficiently.
We’re starting to see more around machine learning to improve order-taking whether inside at a kiosk, or even in drive-thru lanes. For example, Wendy’s is introducing voice automation in the drive-thru, which is decreasing wait times already! This can also be a game-changer in peak, busy times, which leads to better customer experience, better staff experience in peak times, and overall greater revenue.
AI Increases Accessibility
AI is also making it easier for anyone to order and eat at a restaurant.Those with hearing restrictions, those who use sign language, and those who speak other languages in any way can all benefit from the use of artificial intelligence enabling anyone to easily understand, and order from, any menu. Of course there are so many disabilities and limitations people walk into our restaurants with, who for years, have simply put up with a sub-par customer experience because of their personal limitation. We’re used to this and have just come to expect that those with limitations must adapt to whatever is thrown their way. But with AI, we can make it just as stellar of an experience as it would be for any other person in our restaurant. It can be a game-changer in terms of accessibility!
AI Saves You Headaches
As a business owner, AI can be a great asset to speed up and streamline many of the mundane tasks you already do day in and day out each day. For example, our AI Powered Forecast and Dynamic Schedule Generator leverages your data to create an incredibly accurate forecast for the future, helping to ensure you schedule the right amount of labor at the right times.This is just scratching the surface of ways AI can optimize the work you’re already doing, saving you time and stress!
AI Increases the Data Leveraged
Whenever we can track and use data, we can be smarter about how we operate, regardless of the business model. In the quick-serve space, data can be extremely powerful to adjust current business models, but also plan for the future. When something computerized like AI is incorporated into the daily operations, a quick-serve restaurant owner has that much more data to work with. When you consider the voice automation in drive-thrus that Wendy’s is incorporating, you can easily see how how long it takes people to make decisions in an order, what they order vs. how it’s placed on a drive-thru menu, drive-thru ordering trends, and so much more can be evaluated to increase sales and optimize your menu for higher performance.
AI is very quickly changing the game for nearly every industry, but we’re already seeing how much potential it has for the quick serve restaurant industry. It’s an exciting time to be part of this because so many of these applications have potential to make our teams enjoy their work more while giving the customers a better all-around experience too.